Behold, Thy King Cometh

The date is exact: the first day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius, probably 520 BC (Haggai 1:1). The temple foundation had been laid years before, then abandoned under pressure (Ezra 4:24). The people’s explanation was that “the time is not come” (Haggai 1:2). The Lord’s reply was pointed: is it time for you to live in finished, paneled houses while My house lies waste (1:4)? Then, twice, “Consider your ways” (1:5, 7). They planted much and harvested little; they earned wages and put them “into a bag with holes” (1:6). The response is encouraging. Leaders and people “obeyed the voice of the LORD,” He answered, “I am with you,” and He “stirred up” their spirits (1:12–14). Twenty-three days after Haggai spoke, they were back at work (1:15).

🔗 Cross-references

• Doctrine and Covenants 95:3 ↗The Lord rebukes the early Saints for delaying the Kirtland Temple, much as He did through Haggai.
• Matthew 6:33 ↗Seek first the kingdom of God, and the rest will be added.
• Ezra 5:1–2 ↗Haggai and Zechariah prophesy, and Zerubbabel and Joshua begin to build again.

A month later the older people are discouraged. Some remember Solomon’s temple, and this one looks “as nothing” by comparison (2:3). The Lord doesn’t argue. He says, “be strong … and work: for I am with you” (2:4), and promises that “the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former” (2:9). Centuries later that house, rebuilt and enlarged under Herod, would be where the Son of God taught. Haggai then asks the priests a puzzle: holiness doesn’t spread by touch, but uncleanness does (2:11–14). Going through the motions around holy things doesn’t make us holy; a changed heart does. Yet the chapter ends with a promise dated to the very day: “from this day will I bless you” (2:19).

🔗 Cross-references

• Ezra 3:12 ↗Older people who had seen Solomon’s temple weep aloud as the new foundation is laid.
• Doctrine and Covenants 109:12 ↗At the Kirtland Temple dedication, Joseph Smith prays that the Lord’s glory will rest on His house.
• John 2:19–21 ↗In this same temple, Jesus speaks of the temple of His body.

Zechariah began prophesying in the same year as Haggai (Zechariah 1:1). His first message is an invitation: “Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you” (1:3). Don’t be like your fathers, he says, who heard the prophets and didn’t turn (1:4). Then come night visions. Horsemen report that the earth is quiet, and the Lord says He is “jealous for Jerusalem” and will return to it with mercies (1:14–16). In chapter 2 a young man goes out with a measuring line to mark Jerusalem’s walls, and he is told the city will spread out without walls, because the Lord Himself will be “a wall of fire round about” and “the glory in the midst of her” (2:4–5). Whoever touches His people “toucheth the apple of his eye” (2:8).

🔗 Cross-references

• James 4:8 ↗“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
• Malachi 3:7 ↗Malachi repeats the same invitation: return unto me, and I will return unto you.
• Deuteronomy 32:10 ↗Moses sings that the Lord kept Israel “as the apple of his eye.”

Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of the Lord in filthy garments, with Satan at his right hand to accuse him (3:1–3). The Lord rebukes Satan and calls Joshua “a brand plucked out of the fire.” Then He orders the filthy garments removed: “I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment” (3:4). Only the Savior can do that for us. Zechariah also hears of “my servant the BRANCH” (3:8), a title for the coming Messiah. In chapter 4 he sees a golden lampstand fed by two olive trees. The explanation: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit” (4:6). Zerubbabel’s hands laid the foundation and would finish it, so no one should despise “the day of small things” (4:9–10).

🔗 Cross-references

• Isaiah 61:10 ↗The Lord clothes His people “with the garments of salvation” and “the robe of righteousness.”
• Alma 37:6 ↗“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”
• Revelation 12:10 ↗Satan is called “the accuser of our brethren,” cast down by the Lamb.

People ask whether they should keep the fasts they kept in exile. The Lord answers with a question: when you fasted, “did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?” (7:5). What He wants is true judgment, mercy and compassion, and care for the widow, the fatherless, the stranger and the poor (7:9–10). Chapter 8 paints a lovely picture of restored Jerusalem: old men and women sitting in the streets, and the streets full of boys and girls playing (8:4–5). Then chapter 9 gives one of the clearest prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament. The King comes “lowly, and riding upon an ass” (9:9). Matthew and John both quote it for the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:4–5; John 12:14–15). The King of kings chose to arrive humbly.

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 21:4–9 ↗The crowds cry “Hosanna” as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9.
• John 12:14–16 ↗John notes that the disciples understood the prophecy only after Jesus was glorified.
• Isaiah 58:6–7 ↗Isaiah describes the fast the Lord has chosen: loosing burdens and feeding the hungry.

These chapters are hard to follow, but the Savior is everywhere in them. A shepherd is valued at “thirty pieces of silver,” which is then cast “to the potter” (11:12–13); Matthew records Judas’s thirty pieces and the potter’s field (Matthew 26:15; 27:3–7). The people will “look upon me whom they have pierced” and mourn (12:10), and John quotes this at the cross (John 19:37). “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered” (13:7), and Jesus applies that to Himself the night before He died (Matthew 26:31). Then comes a question: “What are these wounds in thine hands?” and the answer, “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” (13:6). The Doctrine and Covenants places that scene at the Savior’s Second Coming (45:51–52).

🔗 Cross-references

• Doctrine and Covenants 45:51–53 ↗At His coming, the Jews see His wounds and weep, and He reveals Himself as the one who was crucified.
• Matthew 27:3–7 ↗Judas returns the thirty pieces of silver, and they buy the potter’s field.
• John 19:37 ↗John quotes Zechariah 12:10 as the soldier pierces the Savior’s side.

Come back to the key verse, and then to the last lines of the book. The King who came lowly on a donkey will “speak peace unto the heathen” and rule “from sea even to sea” (9:10). And in that day the words once engraved for the high priest’s forehead (Exodus 28:36), “HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD,” will be written on the bells of the horses, and every cooking pot in Jerusalem will be holy (Zechariah 14:20–21). The Lord’s aim was never only a holy building. It was a holy people living holy ordinary lives. Latter-day Saint temples carry those same words, and we carry the covenants we make there into kitchens, offices and cars. As you take the sacrament today, ask Him to write holiness on the ordinary tools of your week.

🔗 Cross-references

• Exodus 28:36 ↗The high priest’s golden plate is engraved “HOLINESS TO THE LORD.”
• Doctrine and Covenants 109:13 ↗Joseph Smith prays that all who enter the Lord’s house may feel His power and know it is holy.